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Alibaba misses forecasts as watchdogs loom
Alibaba missed forecasts in the first quarter. The e-commerce giant was hit by growing competition from smaller rivals like JD.com. That saw overall revenue rise to just over $31.8 billion, a little below analyst predictions. The results mirror those of Amazon, which saw online sales growth slow as lockdowns eased, and consumers ventured back to shops. Now a shadow still hangs over Alibaba in the form of China's regulators, who continue to crack down on the country's tech titans.Late last year they halted a $37 billion IPO for affiliate Ant Group, and ordered a restructuring of the financial firm.Then in April they fined Alibaba $2.75 billion over anti-competitive practices. During an earnings call with investors, CEO Daniel Zhang said the firm would monitor the impact of regulatory changes. As one concern, he cited a recent crackdown on online platforms offering items at below market price.
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Brazil frost boosts coffee coin cryptocurrency
A coffee coin, the first cryptocurrency in the world backed by coffee stocks.And it's having a good run, appreciating more than 35% in its first month of negotiations, driven by frosts in Brazil and investor demand.The cryptocurrency, created by the Minasul cooperative, is adjusted by the varying price of coffee in the physical market.Luis Henrique Albinati is New Business Director at Minasul:"Coffee coin combines the best of both worlds: the coffee world, a market that is there and will not end tomorrow, and the crypto world.The price is also influenced by the demand for coffee coin investors in the so-called secondary market."The coffee coin is a stable coin, unlike other cryptocurrencies that do not have a physical reference of their value".The currency traded above $3.48 at the end of last week, before dropping to around $3.19 this Monday (August 2) .That amid a decline in physical prices, pressured by quotations on the New York Stock Exchange after frosts became less intense.
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Wuhan tests all citizens after Delta variant found
China's Wuhan city will test all 12 million residents for the coronavirus.That's after the place where it emerged in late 2019 confirmed its first domestic cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant. Wuhan had reported no local coronavirus cases since May 2020, but on Monday (August 2) authorities confirmed three new cases of the Delta variant. The vice director of Hubei's provincial disease control center says these were linked to infections found in Huaian city in Jiangsu province. The outbreak in Jiangsu is believed to have begun in the provincial capital of Nanjing, with the Delta variant mostly likely introduced on a flight from Russia, according to officials. Since then, numerous cities in southern China and a few in the north including Beijing have reported infections. But it was not immediately clear if all those cases were of the Delta variant, or if they were all linked to Nanjing, as some authorities have not disclosed conclusive results of their virus-tracing efforts. The Delta variant poses new risks for the world's second-biggest economy as it spreads from the coast to inland cities. Authorities in numerous cities have launched mass testing to identify and isolate carriers.
